Musings

In order to assist the students in saw sharpening I stumbled across another application of Clothespin Magic.

One of the key components of saw sharpening is to keep the orientation of the file consistent for each tooth. When you are using a comparatively tiny file, as we were on the dovetail saws, it can be a bit tricky to keep the rake angle the same for every tooth. A method that I find very helpful, short of using one of the specialized handles made for this purpose by Lee Valley or Blackburn, is to use a clothespin to hold a toothpick as a guide stick.

Sometimes I want a guide affixed to the tip of a file, and sometimes to the base. Making the accessory is the same either way, but setting them up is different.

For either version first file a groove across one of the clothespin jaws and on the second jaw file a groove running front-to-back, 90-degrees to the other one. For the tip guide this second groove is the one that is clipped to the end of the tiny file. You now have a set-up to hold a toothpick and the file tip in perfect conformation. Glue the toothpick to the cross groove. The tool is ready to put to work.

For the base version of the guide you simply revere the orientation of the toothpick; rather than gluing it perpendicular to the clothespin you glue it to continue the long axis.

This configuration is particularly helpful for new saw sharpeners, or those new to this scale of sharpening and teeth-cutting. By keeping the toothpick at the correct angle for each filing stroke, you end up with teeth that have an identical rake.

Doggone, is there nothing that clothespins cannot do?

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1 Comment on More Clothespin Magic

This is pretty great! I’ll be honest, I got turned off by saw sharpening when I started. A popular online woodworking teacher really pushed hard to only buy old tools (partly out of cost, to keep it available to all, which I fully support) so I bought a totally rusted, $15 disston dovetail saw as my first backsaw on eBay, and tried to get it working. It was very hard, and without really knowing how to use a backsaw or what it was good for, I wasn’t very motivated to get it going, especially after cutting myself several times on the rusty blade.

So I bought a bad axe, like you do, and learned to cut. And I told myself, they’ll re-sharpen it for you, so cool, that’s done for me for a few dollars down the road.

Now that it’s been a few years and I have a much, much better grasp on tools, their uses and maintenance I think it’s time to try again (I still have my files and saw set and such, so that’s good). And this is the kind of tip I needed. Thank you!